What a blessed convenience was Tom Hardesty! How could we have gotten along without him? How honest and affable! What long ells and heavy pounds he gave! And then his tea! how it inspired the village gossip on long winter nights in a chimney corner! All the matrons of the village were quite in love with Tom, or his tea; and many an old crone, as she sat inhaling cup after cup of the divine beverage, has been known to pause in the midst of her inspirations, and exclaim with uplifted hands, ‘God bless Tom Hardesty!’
And yet Tom Hardesty was a bachelor, and kept ‘bachelor’s hall.’ The only members of his mess were an orphan boy of his adoption, who waited in the store, and a brindle cat which the master had honored with his own name. This point, however, is still wrapt in obscurity, for Tom and ‘Tom’ were both so venerable that nobody could swear whether the cat had been named after the master, or the master after the cat. It had been rumored by those who should know, that Mr. Hardesty should not be held strictly accountable for this sin of celibacy, since he had offered his hand, his heart, and a partnership in his worldly goods, to more than one village beauty, each of whom had found it impossible to ‘love for antiquity’s sake,’ and rejected his matrimonial offers accordingly. Still Tom never repined. His daily experience behind the counter had taught him the useful lesson, that each applicant does not necessarily always drive a trade, and the commodity which one rejects may be eagerly sought by another; and acting on the faith of this philosophy, he lived cheerfully on, cherishing the hope that even yet some fond heart would beat responsive to his own, and promise before the competent authority, to ‘love, honor and obey’ him, Tom Hardesty.
On a memorable Christmas-eve we enter his little counting-room. A cheerful fire blazes on the hearth; and at the moment grimalkin is purring on the rug. Master John, the adopted, is poring over a picture-book, probably an early edition of Peter Parley’s Travels, and Mr. Hardesty is standing before a broken fragment of looking-glass, diligently brushing his scanty locks.
‘John!’ said Mr. Hardesty, turning from the mirror, and looking full at the boy, ‘do I look very old to-night?’
The boy turned up his innocent face, gazed steadily on his master from top to toe, and answered, ‘Sir!’
‘Do I look very old to-night, John?’
John scratched his head. ‘Not much older than you did this time last night, Sir.’
‘Humph!’ said Mr. Hardesty, appealing to the glass, and renewing his efforts with the brush, while John resumed his reading.
‘But, John,’ resumed Mr. Hardesty, seating himself beside the boy, ‘do you really think that a middle-aged lady, of right comfortable property, would have, could have, any rational objection to be called Mrs. Hardesty?’
‘I think not, Sir,’ replied John, taking up the cat; ‘I’m sure you have been very kind to me and old Tom here, and I know you would be so to her.’